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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

My Mom once told me
that when she was a child, kids complained about having to take math.
They said it wasn't useful enough to warrant all-night studying or
hours of impossibly complex equations. That was then. Now, if your
deathday is far enough away, say you're going to die in your
thirties, you will be funneled into the cooperate math machine.
Algebra in first grade, Geometry in second, then Algebra 2, Trig,
Pre-Calc and Calculus in the subsequent years before high-school.
Before you know it, you're taking Theoretical Mathematics and being
prepared for the ultimate goal, Prognostication. Not everyone makes
it, of course. We only need enough Prognostical Mathematicians to
predict, with 100% accuracy, the moment when every man, woman, or
child will die.

I didn't take any
math classes. On the day I was born, my parents cried. Not for joy,
because they had birthed a beautiful baby boy into this harsh world,
but because Prog Jones, still new to the gig of ruining people's
lives, couldn't bring himself to look them in the eye. Instead, he
wrote down the day of my death on the official documents, handed them
to the nurse, and left without a word. Mom says Dad ran after him as
he sped away in his expensive sports car, ran until a semi flung his
body across two lanes of traffic. No one knew his deathday and my
birthday would coincide; Mathematical Prognostication began some
years after my Dad's birth. He was lucky.

“Alright honey,”
Mom says. She grips my hand, tighter than is comfortable, but who
cares? I'll be dead in a few minutes. “Is there anything you want
me to do?” Two ever-moist tracks trace the path her tears have
taken all day today. Since I was born, she's known I'll die before my
eighteenth birthday, but knowing in advance doesn't make it any
easier for her. Me neither, for that matter.

“I think I want
to be alone,” I answer after checking my phone for the time. She
nods her head, understanding perhaps that her seventeen year-old son
is stronger than her. I will die alone, and she will not have to
witness it. That is my gift to her. Before she leaves the room
though, I give her my best smile. “Great deathday party, Mom.
You're the best.”

Another flood of
tears begins its inexorable journey over her high cheekbones, around
the wrinkles on either side of her mouth, and onto her t-shirt, one
she had made. My goofy face smiles out at anyone who bothers to look.
“Keep Kibbles with you.” Mom picks up the heavy cat, sets him on
the bed beside me, and closes the door behind her.

I lie down beside
Kibbles, right arm outstretched so I can see my death time clearly on
the inner side of my bicep, tattooed in miniscule type, but clear
enough for me to be sure down to the second. With my left hand, I
hold my phone and scroll through the pictures, birthdays and
graduations, sleepovers and hikes in the woods. The pictures are
plentiful, mostly of me and Mom; it's hard to make friends when
everyone knows you won't live very long. As the clock on my phone
announces my last thirty seconds of life, I pause the slide show on a
picture of my parents. Dad hugs Mom from behind, his hands on her
pregnant belly. Sorry for letting you down, guys.
Tears of my own wet my arm, and as the clock runs out, I take in one
last big gulp, let it out in a heavy sigh, and die.

Harsh
sandpaper scratches my face, quick strokes in rapid succession across
my forehead. Is this death? Heaven or hell? Kibbles continues to lick
me, finishes before I dare to hope that somehow, whatever Pr. Jones
predicted, I am still alive. I crush Kibbles' fluffy form to my body
despite his protests. Even when his claws find my arm, I take joy in
the pain. I'm alive! Prog Jones was wrong!

The
door to my room opens on silent hinges as I enter the hallway that
leads to the living room. I run my hands over framed pictures of the
life I thought was over, and when I reach the open space where many
of them occurred, I see Mom, sobbing louder than the sound of my
footsteps. The blinds are drawn, the lamps off. I fumble for a light
switch.

“Mom—”
Anything I would have said is cut off in the blood-chilling scream of
a woman who has seen a ghost. My mother, never very quick or
athletic, zips across the room, to brandish a heavy iron poker from
the fireplace.

“Get
thee behind me, Satan!” She shouts and waves the poker about to
emphasize her point.

I
can't help but laugh. Try as I might, I really cannot stop it. Mom
puts the poker down and walks toward me.

“Is
this real?” She asks. I only shrug my shoulders. Who am I to say?
I'm supposed to be dead. The next hour passes slow and sweet with
many hugs and tears, with dancing around the room like maniacs.
Finally Mom picks up her phone. “We've got to call someone.”

“Who?”

I'd
rather not speak to any Prognostician. They're likely to focus on
setting another death date, and that's something I'd like to avoid. “The news.”

“Right.”
She finds the number and dials it, giving me a thumbs up as we wait
for an answer. “Hello? Yes, I'd like to report, well, how do I put
it? My son was supposed to die today, just—” She checks her
watch, “just an hour ago. But he's not dead! He's alive, sitting
right here.” She squeezes my arm and gives me the goofy grin I
inherited from her. “Yes, of course. We'll be right here waiting.”

She
hangs up, takes me by the shoulders, and shakes me back and forth.
“They're coming to check it out right now! Help me clean the house.
It's a mess.”

Chuckling
to myself as I sweep the floor—this is not what I would have
thought life after death would be—I settle into cleaning until the
sound of a vehicle stops our work. Mom and I wait at the door, and on
the first knock, open it.

“Welcome...”

The
men standing before us are not newsmen. No way. Black suits, black
shades, black guns in black holsters. “Mr. Sloan, Ms. Sloan. We're
going to need you to come with us.”

They've
come to kill me. I don't know how I'm so sure, but I am. If I don't
run, I'm dead. For real this time. “Go, Mom, go!”

Who
am I kidding? I make it to the kitchen before a dark form rears up
before me. I didn't study math in school, but that doesn't mean I'm
some musclebound jock either. I can't compete. The man wrestles me to
the linoleum, my cheek bruising against the cool floor.

“What's
going on?” I scream. “What did we do?”

They
don't answer. Well, if they're not going to be helpful, neither will
I. I go limp, forcing another of the well-dressed men to help the
first carry me through the living room, out the door, and into a
black car with tinted windows.

I
try to shout again, but one of the men cuffs my hands behind me and
stuffs a piece of cloth in my mouth. What is this? How am I being
kidnapped in broad daylight? Mom, already cuffed and gagged beside
me, looks around wildly, and moves closer to me until we're touching.

“Mump
wumph hmme woway.” She says. No, it's not going to be okay.

One
of the men starts the car and we're rolling. My heart rails against
my chest, beating faster than it ever has. We leave behind our quiet
neighborhood with its cookie cutter homes and clean streets. Our car
enters the country, only populated with occasional homes. Children
play tag in their yards or jump on trampolines, unaware of our
passage. What do their tattoos say? Another forty five minutes, and
the houses grow sparse. Now fields of tobacco and green beans
surround us. The men that took us may not tell us anything, but I
don't think they have to. I was supposed to die today, and today I
will die.

The
sun sets on our left, a brilliant display of red and yellow, perhaps
the last I'll see. We'll see. I try to apologize to Mom, but my gag
turns my words to mush. I hope she knows—

Squealing
tires are all the warning I get before my world slows to a crawl. The
high-pitched scream of twisted metal accompanies weightlessness, like
a cartwheel underwater, and finally, a punch to the chest, expelling
my breath and any ability to take another.

Our
driver, one arm trapped in a metal claw created by his smashed door,
reaches into his jacket, pulls out his gun, and points it at my head.
His face disappears in a red and white kaleidoscope as a bullet tears
through it.

Before
I can give in to the urge to vomit, my door opens. A different set of
men pull me out and remove my gag. Despite my joy at this rescue(?),
I make a note of their failure to uncuff me.

“What's
going on?” I ask as they lead Mom and I to a large truck complete
with snow plow attached to its front like a rhino beetle's horn.

The
man who saved us doesn't speak, but his answer is enough. He pulls
back his sleeve, and in the light of the full moon, I read his
tattoo.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

I always wondered how people in the far
north could stand months without night. Now I know it’s just something you get
used to, something you can’t change. I’ve found the same to be true about the Invasion,
if that’s what it is. It’s been a month since I woke to this new world, it’s
ruby red skies and bruised purple nights, it’s never-ending heat. I woke to the Crawlers, bulbous pink creatures with no eyes, a
hundred tentacle legs, and six tubes along their back that house the worst part
of it all.